


The Honorable Thing

by Quaggy



Series: Things Not Meant To Be [4]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6679168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quaggy/pseuds/Quaggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Other Woman mulls things over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Honorable Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted May 23, 2007 and I'd like to point out that the series is set in 2009/2010. So, yeah. Future fic, literally. This is a much darker look at the future of the Santos Administration than I normally take. The series title and opening quote are both from the James Taylor song "Long Ago And Far Away."

_August 2_ _010_

_Loving the love I love..._

__  
  
When she was little, she used to listen to her grandmother wax nostalgic about the love of  Edward VIII for Wallis Simpson. Even as a child, she’d never been able to understand what was so admirable about a king who was prepared to give up everything just so he could get married. Her heroes were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Alice Paul. Women who changed the world by using only their brains and their sheer will. Not because they were good in bed. She wanted to continue their legacy. But somehow she’s become Wallis, not Alice.  
  
This wasn’t something she had planned and she finds herself questioning everything. Why had she allowed herself to make a mockery of everything she believed in? What had changed in the year since New Hampshire? Why had her insides suddenly started to melt when he was nearby? Was power really that much of an aphrodisiac? Probably.  
  
But it was more than that. For the first time since she’d met him, she had experienced the full force of his charisma and charm. She never asks herself why he had turned it on for her that night, of all nights, because she suspects that she would not like the answer. But then, she doesn’t look too closely at her own motivations, either. The sudden, disastrous end of her love affair just as she was certain it would go the distance. The salt in the wound of another woman’s tropical vacation when she already felt like a failure. Even the disdain that Helen Santos handed her while she was still innocent of any betrayal. They all were factors, even if she prefers not to think about it. But she has to if she wants to figure out how she got here.  
  
She knows that things aren’t the way they should have been, but she can’t seem to set things to rights. The election is only months away, but no one would know it, given the staff’s apathy. There is a definite chill in the West Wing. She isn’t sure whether it’s directed at her specifically or if it’s a general loss of morale. Either way, because of the general ill will, she’s been abandoning her office during her lunch hour to walk around the city, even in the heavy, humid DC summer air.    
  
For some reason she can’t quite put her finger on, she doesn’t walk up toward Farragut and Dupont Circle like she normally does. Instead, she heads south towards the Washington Monument and blends in with the tourists as much as a woman in business casual can. Though she walks in the direction of the Capitol, she continues along Independence Avenue, so the building isn’t within her line of sight. On impulse, she turns into the gardens in front of the Smithsonian Castle, with half a mind to sit by the water fountain in front of the Arts and Industry Building. The actual fountain, in the shape of a waterfall, is on one side of an octagonal area, enclosed by low walls, but there are smaller fountains (really nothing more than water spigots) at each corner of the walls, smaller waterfalls in the middle of four of the walls and a large water spout in the center that can shoot six feet into the air, much to the delight of small children and overheated adults, giving the illusion that the entire octagon is one large water fountain. It’s a pretty place and rather soothing, as she had discovered during a function a few years back. But she stops short before she quite gets there.    
  
Josh and Donna are sitting to one side, taking animatedly to each other, with the baby between them. Perhaps next summer, Noah will join the small children running around the center water spout, but for now he seems to be content to sit (or squirm. . . he is Josh’s son, after all) in his mother’s arms as she and Josh debate. . . DNC policy? Which museum to visit next? Diaper changing techniques? A combination of all three, for all she knows. Their discussion is interrupted when Noah manages to kick the nearby water spigot, splashing his father. His parents laugh and Josh leans down and waves his finger in mock admonishment. Noah just squeals with glee and throws himself at his father leaving wet, drooly, open mouth baby-style kisses on his jaw. Josh laughs even harder and takes Noah from Donna. Her shoulders still shaking with laughter, Donna reaches down to pull out a cloth from her diaper bag to dry her husband’s face, as Noah reaches out and grabs at Josh’s nose, dislodging his sunglasses. Josh and Donna look at each other over their son’s head, their faces alight with joy and amazement. Even from where she is hovering, she can tell they are both astonished that they’ve been granted this perfect moment. There must have been times when it seemed as likely as a weekend trip to Jupiter.  
  
She slips away silently before she can be noticed and returns to her office, quiet, introspective and inspired. Seeing the Lymans has caused her mind to travel paths that she had never considered before.    
  
While she still worked for Senator Stackhouse, a young Congressman made the mistake of making a dirty joke at Josh and Donna’s expense and wound up on the receiving end of a long lecture by the Senator about respect, projecting one’s own guilty conscience and finding dishonor where none existed. For the longest time, she had considered the Senator’s speech to just be another example of the man’s obstinacy. She had never considered the deeper ramifications. Josh was able to do his job effectively because he had the respect of men of honor like Senator Stackhouse, which was thanks largely to the honorable manner in which Josh conducted his own personal life.   
  
Back then, Josh wasn’t married to anyone. Neither was Donna. Theoretically, there was nothing standing in their way if they wanted to peruse a romantic relationship. Except for the fact that Donna was Josh’s assistant. If they had become involved, everything she earned both before and after that would be attributed to what she was doing in the bedroom, not the office. She would never have been given the respect that she received from the Hill. Because even as a lowly assistant, Donna had been able to command respect. That was something of which she had always been secretly envious.  
  
She had never considered Josh and Donna’s relationship to be noble — if she’d ever considered it at all.  But she now knows first hand how extraordinarily hard it is to stay away from the person you love simply because it is the right thing to do.  
  
She knows it’s too late for her to do the right thing from the beginning as Josh and Donna had. That moment passed by long ago when Matt offered her a chance to throw rocks and fix things from the inside. She thinks she fell in love in that moment and it didn’t bother her a bit. But she knows better now. Every moment she stays by his side, pretending that nothing is wrong, she slowly undermines the trust given to the office of the President and the integrity of the administration.  
  
There is only one way she knows to make this right. In the morning, the President will find a letter waiting for him.  
  
_I, Amy Gardner, after four years of loyal service resign the post of Director of Legislative Affairs, effective immediately. . ._  


**Author's Note:**

> The identity of the Other Woman is very much tied to where this all came from. I had long thought that the Santos marriage could very well crack under the strain of the Oval Office. You just did not see the deep bond between them in Season 7 that you did with between Jed and Abbey Bartlet. (Though, I would argue, Season 6 was a different story.) So why Amy? Because I was stuck by the obvious chemistry between Mary Louise Parker and Jimmy Smits in _Requiem_. (And the obvious disdain that Helen Santos had for Amy in _The Last Hurrah,_ had its influence too.) The only drawback to this plan that I could see was that Amy was Josh’s ex-girlfriend and I was a notorious Josh and Donna shipper. I didn’t want people to think I was Amy bashing, because that’s not what this series was about at all! It’s about what happens when your demons overcome your better angels. So, I decided to keep her identity secret for as long as possible in hopes that I could get people to trust me a bit.


End file.
